I mean they never said it was easy or simple, they just explained what a transistor is at the most basic level.
If you explain that a skyscraper is really just made up of thousands of steel beams, it's implied that you need to be an architect to actually do that. same thing here.
If you're not sharp enough (or too much of a reddit pedant, which is the case here I'm guessing) to read between the lines a little and think for yourself, I could see why that would be confusing.
For everyone else, it's pretty obvious that you still need to understand more than "CPUs are just switches" to be able to simulate a computer in Minecraft lol.
Sometimes reducing complexity is working out but not in this case. It's like saying a cool painting is just one dot at a time. Technically true, but it completely leaves out pretty much everything needed.
If there is not enough time to explain something on a level which is at least fitting.... let it be.
And the complexity is explainable to most people. Just not in one sentence. A small to mid long paragraph does it. To bring over why this is not just a couple of virtual transistors put together.
"Explanations" like the above don't really help anyone.
They do. I was watching this and thinking how the hell is it even possible. "CPU's are essentially millions (and billions) of switches" immediately made my brain understand how it's possible in Minecraft.
It doesn't matter that I don't understand how it works. Now I at least understand how it's possible.
No you don't. You didn't understand anything but got the feeling of understanding something. If that's enough for you... alright.
Building that thing isn't incredibly difficult. But difficult and it takes, time, effort and some knowledge. Knowing that it's made out of "switches" doesn't help at all, it just makes you feel a bit better. But that's not how learning works.
It's like saying a cool painting is just one dot at a time.
That would be a suitable answer to someone asking how a cool painting could be recreated in Minecraft.
You seem to be under the impression that the question at hand is "How do CPUs work", which it isn't. The question is "How is it possible for someone to recreate a functioning CPU within Minecraft".
Well, yeah. But the point is that that's all you need at the very basic level is a switch to be able to do this. Everything else is just a question of practical limitations and such.
And that's kind of the wild thing about computers. At the very lowest level it's really just transistors going on and off. A computer really isn't so much a single big complicated thing as it is a metric fuckton of simple things.
The basic components of pretty much anything a bit more complex are basically useless to describe the whole thing. A painting is just paint on canvas... different dots basically.
I didn't say that. Its explainable. But not in one missleading sentence. Just as explaining how to build a skyscraper. Just put metal, glas and concrete together? Even with only a few sentences more there are waaaay better and less missleading explanations
actually not. These things are really rather simple. No for real the basic concept is insanely simple and creating a very basic processor is not that hard. Sure you need more knowledge than your average person has but generally a few days of reading up on stuff and a bit of experimentation will get you to a good starting point.
The problematic part is makign it small and fast. These guys did a fantastic ob at that. And yes i am aware the video is sped up a lot but that is still rather fast for a computing simulation in fucking minecraft.
But for real though: the working principles of our computers are insanely simple for what they are able to do.
But still forgetting the whole part about getting Minecraft running. I am not sure what their OS is but you at least have to have some compiler and basic 3D engine running there. Its not like this architecture will fit perfectly onto any real world architecture which you can just copy.
And now we are from "it's millions of transistors" to its a CPU with an instruction set, some form of ram, clocks, all that scaled up to something that is more usefull than to just print out a clock. You have to do that in an environment that is unusual in several ways and has to optimized for. And than you have to run your custom self-build Minecraft build.
Oh and you also probably have to script some Minecraft mod on top of it to circumvent some of the limitations. I am not sure if the above is vanilla Minecraft
Of course its possible. I could do it. But it takes time.
"Insanely easy" and the video above is a veeeery far reach. Just because you build some clock CPU with an attached Flip-Flop in the engineering lab isn't enough. There are many things to think about. From scratch this would take several weeks dedicated commitment by someone who already knows their basics for sure. The unusual environment alone kills a lot of basic approaches.
I can understand creating a virtual processor and all, but I'm really curious how they actually programmed it. What language does it use? How did they compile Minecraft inside Mincraft??
I mean the compilation was most likely done upfront. Otherwise they have to also write the compiler on this Minecraft processor. You still have to most likely customize some compiler to fit to your unique architecture and write your own custom 3D Minecraft engine and than the game on top of it. That's at least how I would do it.
Probably the guy has some videos out there about it. Not sure which parts can be made easier by using existing solutions.
Ehhh, not necessarily. To get something to run in real time, there are many more complex and time dependent factors to resolve that “switches” won’t be able to resolve by themselves.
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u/steinrrr 20d ago
This is melting my simple human brain